The Stench of Obamacation Will Remain Long After Duncan Is Gone

If there was an argument ever to be made against Barack Obama, it is in his attempted dismantling of a key component of our democracy, public education. This is untenable with any kind of Democratic Party belief or any American belief. It forever labeled him as a fraud, a neolib, who was cynically used by his wealthy backers to undermine the party while neutralizing any opposition from key constituencies like African Americans. I loathe the man as a politician and feel he has damaged the party almost beyond repair.

We know from his years with the Joyce Foundation he was a tool for charter schools, total scams designed to siphon money away from public schools and transfer more wealth to the rich. Yet this fraud was put in there in 2009. The destruction of public ed began almost overnight with this good-for-nothing sack of shit. It was all Obama and his puppetmasters' doing. He put in his basketball-playing crony to head the DOE, the spectacularly unqualified Arne Duncan, who was nothing more than a dumb jock who made George W. Bush look like Einstein. He was that stupid. His intellectual shortcomings were obvious, but he, like Obama, actually believed that because they got into Harvard and other Ivy League schools they were smarter than the rest of us.

Now Obama has somebody named John King, a worse foul ball than even Duncan, to take over the rest of Duncan's tenure at the DOE. He has clear contempt for the teaching profession and education. Another Ivy League-"educated" arrogant shitstain who thinks he knows more than the rest of us, especially those of us who are teachers or in the education field. Another impeachable piece of shit like the man who appointed him and the man who was his predecessor.

More about Duncan's "legacy" here:

Sticking with the theme of lightning rods, Politico’s Michael Grunwald recently wrote a profile of now-outgoing Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and one of the big takeaways of the piece is that Duncan managed to unite the left and the right — in opposition. Do you have a theory to explain this particular kind of bipartisanship?

Education creates very odd coalitions in America, and it has throughout history. Conservatives who are opposed to the Arne Duncan package of reform generally oppose national curriculum. They do that because they’re coming from the states’ rights perspective, which obviously has pretty deep historical roots in the United States. (That’s one reason why it was such a surprise that No Child Left Behind was a bipartisan piece of legislation.)

If the NEA Called for Obama's Resignation,

it would make international headlines, let me tell you. But calling for only Dipshit Duncan to step down will mean absolutely zilch. First of all, nobody gives a shit about education news despite the fact the future of the country is at risk with these "reformers," and second of all, even if Duncan were to step down tomorrow, Obama would pick another Bill Gates puppet to replace him.

The problem is with Obama. Obama despises public education. Period.

Anyway, a snip:

NEA has had a tense relationship with the Obama administration, and it's unclear how this will affect the union.

For years, as Education Week has reported, the NEA has vented its frustration with President Obama by essentially taking it out on Duncan. This strategy has allowed the union to criticize the administration without looking foolish, especially during the 2012 re-election season—after all, the union has never once endorsed a Republican presidential candidate, and had no choice but to throw its weight behind Obama.

But it's also important to note that California is one of the most populous of the state affiliates, and each year submits a large number of the NBIs that are debated. Last year, sources say, the CTA submitted 36 of the 92 total NBIs.

Again, the problem is with a teacher-hating neoliberal president who is a fake Democrat. He and Duncan should both be impeached over their illegal education policies.

Arne Needs to Take Those Waivers and Shove Them Up His Ass

We need a hell of a lot more people to tell this lousy administration off when it comes to education policy.

Of course Duncan and Obama need to be sent packing, but their backers will see to it they continue on their destructive rampage against public education.

What they are doing is clearly illegal.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

Wanted to share a comment following this post about the exclusion of NJ special ed students from charter schools, which is supposed to be illegal under federal law. However, it pretty much gives the lie to the notion charter schools are "public schools" when clearly they are NOT.

Somebody had seen Doofus Duncan giving testimony today in front of the House Appropriations Committee (yeah, Congress is actually working today). This is this person's take on it:

Today Secretary Arne Duncan testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor/HHSE/Education. Sec. Duncan was defending the Obama FY 2015 budget request. During the hearing, Rep. Roybal-Allard (D-CA) expressed disappointment that there was no recommended increase for Part B of IDEA, noting that the federal share was supposed to be 40% and is only 16%. She questioned why the budget would recommend $100 million for a new competitive state grant program when funds were so badly needed for Part B. (The Administration’s proposal is to create a $100 million competitive grant program for states to implement the Results Driven Accountability system put forward by OSERS.)

Sec. Duncan responded by noting that these are tough budget times and if Congress wants to seriously take on full funding for Part B, he would like to talk. He noted that students never leave special education; that they go into special education, but never exit. He said students need to move out of special education so they can graduate from high school and that innovation is needed to promote this. He indicated that this new program would promote such innovations.

Duncan is clear about his interest in special education funding: tough beans. If Kids with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Learning Disabilities, Traumatic Brain Injuries, etc. can’t be cured in 12 years they should be punished for having a disability

This asshole, meaning Duncan, probably wants moderate-to-severe kids back in institutions, where they were pre-IDEA. He and his crooked backers have absolutely NO concept whatsoever about special education, let alone the diversity of students in it. He also has no clue about how special needs students' parents are very, very, very vocal about the rights of their children and are willing to haul his ass into court to make their points clear.

He actually should be put in front of the House Judiciary Committee in an impeachment hearing of him and his boss.

The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, or, Why Obama is a Complete Failure as President

His disastrous education policies are reason alone to list him as the very worst president in American history, except maybe James Buchanan, but even Buchanan, as bad as he was, never had the far-reaching impact this president will likely have in destroying ANY chance for upward mobility of the vast majority of people in order to help his buddies at the top.

Of course I have said I had no hope he was going to be any good at all when he got elected in 2008. It almost took an act of God to get me to actually pick his name in the voting booth on the very last day of "early voting" in Nevada. I damned near didn't do it, and I wouldn't have done it had there been a decent third-party alternative (naturally I didn't vote from him at all in 2012 and went third party). Almost nobody, yours truly included, had ANY idea he was on the board of a think tank that supported charter schools, the Joyce Foundation, in the 1990s, and that alone should have disqualified him from any national or local office. However, his rhetoric, if people had paid any close attention at all, was very, very worrisome if you cared about public institutions and the public good. He was repeating the same crap the GOP had been repeating for years. He was and is nothing but a Wall Street tool.

His appointment of Arne Duncan was the very worst cabinet appointment in American history. This corrupt and intellectually challenged individual has been give virtually free rein to subvert the U.S. constitution and mandate what state and local governments can or can't do with education, which is a state and local matter, going so far as to bribe them into submission to carry out "reforms" that have been uniformly disastrous. Impeachment and removal are warranted, but nobody in Congress will do it because 90 percent or more of them actually support destroying public education.

This is nothing but a naked assault on democracy. It took a "Democrat" to do what the extremists in the GOP could NEVER do and NEVER get away with.

A snip from the piece:

Let us recall some highlights of this presidential campaign. In 2010, Education Secretary Arne Duncan castigated public school teachers in Rhode Island for going on strike to protest arbitrary changes in working conditions and wages while encouraging authorities to fire them if necessary. He "applauded" the move to fire every teacher at Central Falls High School (as reported in the Providence Journal). This is from an administration that never asked anyone to resign from AIG, Bank of America, CITI, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Fannie Mae or Sally Mae.

Similarly, in 2012-2013, Obama lent the tacit backing of the White House to Rahm Emanuel's strategy for busting the Chicago teachers union and for a mass closing of public schools. The follow-on 'charter' program has been cited as rife with corruption. Secretary Duncan has been given free rein to use the powers of his department to cajole and pressure states into the unqualified promotion of charter schools -- whatever the record shows about their mediocre record.

Duncan's office has been the moving force behind a concerted effort to conceal the reality of what charter schools have, and have not, accomplished. The truth is not very pretty. Overall, the performance of their students on standardized tests, and graduation rates, are marginally worse on than those of the country's public schools. The drop-out rate among minorities is actually higher.** This dismal record is despite the preferential treatment that charter schools' receive: subsidies above and beyond the budgets of counterpart public schools; the cherry-picking of students that excludes many of those with chronic learning and/or discipline problems and/or from non-English speaking families; etc.

You will never, EVER convince me this rotten president is anything than one of the very worst, if not THE worst, who has ever come down the pike.

At least to date. I can bet the gangsters who control both political parties will find some puppet even worse and run on the Democratic Party ticket to appear as more sane than whoever the GOP nominates.

A Stupid, Lying S***bag Will Always Be One

The more people oppose Arne's bullshit, the more he digs in and keeps spewing lies that were more appropriate during the Reagan and Bush II administrations, not from a so-called "Democratic" administration.

Of course the billionaires like Broad and Gates call the shots; after all, the 2008 or 2009 Broad blueprint is absolutely identical to the shit the Obama administration is cramming down the throats of American public education.

Arne and the Broad Foundation go back a few years.

Birds of a Feather

No surprise columnist Tom Friedman, who got his status the old-fashioned way by literally whoring himself into a rich family, is standing up for somebody who also has whored himself but in the Chicago style. Of course I am referring to Arne Duncan, the man who would be national superintendent of public schools but is a stupid, corrupt son of a bitch who shouldn't even be allowed to run a hotdog stand, let alone get anywhere near government.

It doesn't matter that every single goddamned thing pushed by the "reformers" does not work and has been shown to be a spectacular failure. That's because truth doesn't matter when you are a slave to an ideology, this one being the idea the public commons should be sold off for private gain.

That is what neoliberalism is in a nutshell: Everything is for sale to the highest bidder, with no restraint on greed. Kids are just collateral damage; the important goal is giving more handouts to the assholes who have all but destroyed this country.

Neoliberalism/libertarianism is simply political cover for sociopathy.

You can read Friedman's putrid comments here.

Doing a search, Friedman did attend both private and public schools, both K-12 and college, although he seemed to lack direction until he got married in 1978.

Marrying into money can give you a lot of options you wouldn't have just being a working class slob.

"Obamacore" Is Right

So says one of the many astute commenters following an article that spotlights yet another choice quote from the idiot who is destroying public education in the United States, or, rather, the chief idiot who works for the idiot who is trying to destroy public education in the United States to help his billionaire/corporate backers.

His quote is a beaut:

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”

Way to go, you stupid son of a bitch, but then again we "little people" aren't your constituency, you corrupt bastard.

Arne Decided To Take a Dump

and has appointed a Number Two for his truly shitty Department of Education to further Arne's crappy agenda.

Number Two LOVES charter schools. Of course he would. Nobody who supports public education is welcome in this "Democratic" administration.

More proof this administration is controlled by gangsters who stand to profit from taxpayer money.

Arne Is All Upset

because his horrible education policies are finally being called out for the shit they are. Of course they are also Obama's ideas, and both have a hell of a lot to answer for, provided there is still a federal government left if the Kochroaches or fascists in Congress get done their way and Obama capitulates, just like he always does.

He think anybody who knows what he or she is talking about when it comes to education is an "armchair pundit" when this asshole doesn't care what he is doing to the country's public schools.

What he is whining about is Diane Ravitch's new book (which should arrive on my doorstep today) has hit the bestseller list, and she is getting a bit of media attention.

We can't have that, after all.

More Proof Harvard Is Nothing But a Degree Mill

The dictator of American education's latest outrage is also seen at this link.

This is yet another reason why this would-be national superintendent of education needs to either be impeached or forced to resign. He is pathetically unqualified to head an education department, and also he made a complete mess out of Chicago. He is the worst cabinet pick in the history of the United States. He operates above the law and thinks he IS the law. He is intellectually unfit to head a government agency.

If he knew one thing at all about special education, he would know that the vast majority of students in sped programs are LD (learning disabled) and HAVE to take the same standardized tests as students in the general population, but with accommodations and modifications as required by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. He also should be well versed in IDEA and NCLB, but I doubt this guy even knows what the acronyms mean, let alone what the laws are.

Students who are severely disabled take alternate testing. You cannot expect severely autistic students or students who are severely disabled because of cerebral palsy or FAS or shaken baby syndrome to even be physically, let alone mentally, able to take regular tests.

This cabinet official needs to be sent packing, like yesterday.

The Pressure Really Should Be on Congress to Impeach Him

I am referring to impeaching Arne Duncan, not his boss, though it sure as hell wouldn't break my little heart if a movement to remove the president were to start. The GOP wouldn't do it to Obama anyway because despite all of the posturing and rhetoric, Obama by and large is doing exactly what they and their gangster backers want. He is, after all, the gangsters' puppet and always was. He's the first "Manchurian candidate" we have had elected to the presidency in the history of the United States.

Getting back to Arne, this movement to pressure for his removal is one avenue and maybe the one with the greatest chance of success, assuming this would-be dictator were to ever voluntarily step down.

Arne Duncan, a mental lightweight despite--or perhaps because of--his Ivy League pedigree, is an individual with an insane desire to operate as a national school superintendent despite his miserable track record in Chicago and his total lack of qualifications. Worse than that, he displays the worst tendencies of school district administrators: He not only thinks he is above the law but that he IS the law. He doesn't follow the U.S. Constitution.

It's long overdue for him to leave Dodge.

Impeach Duncan

I am serious.

The guy is downright evil, stupid, and corrupt, and not in that order. He has done untold harm to the public education system in this country, flouting state and federal laws in the process.

He is a law unto himself.

He must go.

California Leads the Way

in telling fake Democrats Obama and Duncan to go to hell.

The rest of the states want the waivers, but RTTT is a thousand times worse than NCLB.

California is one of the last holdouts in the country; the administration has succeeded in persuading reluctant officials in Illinois and Texas to come aboard. State officials say they are resolved to stand firm, regardless of the consequences.

The obstinacy has frustrated the Education Department, where Secretary Arne Duncan and his top aides have been trying to create a uniform system that can be used to reward the best teachers and move the worst out of the profession. Now they see that drive stalling in the nation's most populous state. That has made for awkward politics; the administration is not accustomed to California aggressively throwing sand in the gears.

The fucker should resign, and so should his boss.

Dumbshit Duncan

With the contempt he has for teachers, talking boilerplate, right-wing talking points about how "stupid" teachers are because they supposedly are in the "bottom third of their classes," this fucking moron proves Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League universities are little more than degree mills. He should be removed as Secretary of Education. After all, this fucking moron never taught and is unqualified to be any kind of administrator.

Duncan makes George W. Bush look like Einstein. I am not joking here.

At around the 22:45 point, he shows his contempt for teachers. He gave this speech a few months ago.




He and his boss need to be GONE. They are NOT Democrats but corporate, neoliberal tools.

Destroying Public Education is a Bipartisan Affair

Just take a look at what education secretary Arne Duncan is doing, for example. He is gallivanting around Michigan hobnobbing with far right governor Rick Snyder to wage war on teachers and public schools in that state.

The state is on the verge of disaster. Detroit is being used as a guinea pig for wholesale privatization in that state.

Now tell me again Obama and Duncan are "Democrats," please.

The decision of the White House to send Duncan on a photo-op tour with Snyder was aimed at demonstrating bipartisan unity when it comes to dismantling public education and funneling public assets to private corporations.

Just last month, the Detroit News revealed a secret plot by top Snyder officials, right-wing think tank operatives and politically connected technology executives to circumvent the state’s ban on school vouchers and channel public money to privately operated schools. Under the scheme, technology firms—including those which donated to the governor’s election—would pocket public money by operating cut-rate “value schools” that replaced teachers with long distance video conferencing. (See, “Snyder administration plot to privatize Michigan schools exposed”)

In an answer to this reporter’s question about the conspiracy at a press conference following their appearance in Detroit, Duncan, looking visibly upset, claimed not to have “followed the story closely.” He said he had never supported vouchers but “we are not going to agree on every issue. I love my wife dearly, but my wife and I don’t agree on everything.”

So, Arne, you are admitting you are in bed with Snyder?

It sure sounds like it.

One of the Reasons I Will NOT Vote for Obama

The education policy is a total disaster, and Arne insists he will stick around for a second term to make sure the public education system in this country, a system which helped make the United States great, is destroyed and given to profiteers and outright crooks:

A second-term Obama White House is likely to stick to low-hanging fruit in education—tackling issues that don’t require assistance from Congress and don’t get in the middle of the complexities of the teaching profession. Congress was unable to come to agreement on a bill to rewrite the No Child Left Behind education law, and is unlikely to do so in the next few years. Some observers say there is more disagreement now on where federal law should be than there was 10 years ago. Congress’s inaction has actually given the White House more power to act on its own. The Education Department administration came up with its own rubric, in the form of No Child Left Behind waivers, to help states get around the law’s outdated benchmarks.

It seems like the Obama administration has been up to its eyeballs trying to interfere with the teaching profession. Who the hell are they trying to fool?

By the way, getting around a federal law is illegal. Arne Duncan should have been impeached for it.

Rahm Wouldn't Do What He is Doing

if he were not getting blessings from Duncan and Obama for his effort to bust up the CTU:

The first day of the strike, according to the authoritative Substance News, 50,000 Chicagoans surrounded the downtown city block housing the Chicago Board of Education. Teachers union leaders have staked their future on aggressively reaching out for alliances with community and parent groups. They know they've got no strike fund to fall back on, and no radio or TV stations to combat the flood of lies and disinformation about them. Polls taken by the Chicago Sun-Times, a local newspaper vigorously opposed to public school teachers, show 47% of those questioned supporting the teachers at the strike's outset. Across the country, not just in Chicago, President Obama's education policies are deeply and widely unpopular among the constituencies he needs to win the election. But fortunately for the president, corporations have for some time failed to fund much in the way of journalism, so many Democratic voters don't necessarily connect him with those policies.

Hence Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is able to muddy the water for his boss by declaring his neutrality in the strike. Mitt Romney on the other hand is free to paint some imaginary distance between the two parties by embracing Rahm Emanuel and accusing Obama of siding with Chicago teachers. But it's all campaign smoke and mirrors. Chicago Democrat Rahm Emanuel isn't coloring outside the lines of his president's policies on public education. He's been carrying them out to the letter, trying his level best to make Chicago into Providence Rhode Island, where school officials simply fired ALL the teachers, or Detroit, which largely dismantled its public schools, or New Orleans, where Arne Duncan's predecessor as Chicago schools CEO Paul Vallas closed more than a hundred public schools after laying waste to public education in Philadelphia.

Obama is the worst Democratic president since James Buchanan, while Arne Duncan is the worst cabinet choice EVER.

A Nightmare for Education Came to Reno Yesterday,

but it appears the only thing the audience was concerned about was the Dream Act:

Students, parents and educators peppered U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan with questions in Reno on Wednesday that ranged from what his agency is doing to pass the Dream Act to how he will make college more affordable for struggling families.

“I am very frustrated that we have not passed the Dream Act,” Duncan told the audience of more than 400 people gathered at the University of Nevada, Reno for a town hall meeting on college access and affordability for Hispanics.

“We desperately need to pass the Dream Act,” he said of the hotly debated law proposed in Congress.

You just KNOW more important questions were asked and answered or weasel-worded, but the paper simply refused to print them.

The Effer Needs to Be Impeached

I mean Arne Duncan over his outrageous education policies although they are backed by the likes of Emanuel and Obama.

It's a fight to the death. I wish teachers were following politics a lot longer and a lot sooner, and perhaps this crap could have been nipped in the bud many years ago.

It's almost too late now:

AMY GOODMAN: —Arne Duncan coming from Chicago. Explain all of these ties.

PAULINE LIPMAN: Right, right. So, as you said, Arne Duncan was the CEO of Chicago Public Schools. And under his watch in 2004, Chicago launched a policy called Renaissance 2010, which was actually designed by the Commercial Club of Chicago in 2003. The Commercial Club is an organization of the biggest CEOs and bankers in the city, essentially. And Arne Duncan pushed through this agenda of closing neighborhood schools, turning them over to private operators or expanding charter schools and having charter schools come in, and increasingly putting more pressure on teachers to respond to the high-stakes tests that Phil was talking about earlier.

And so, that agenda, which has been really devastating in Chicago and had already been very clearly very devastating in 2008, after four years, was the agenda that Duncan took to Washington when he became secretary of education, and it’s embedded in Race to the Top. So, Race to the Top has a set of provisions that really basically means states are competing for $4.3 billion in federal funds. And in order to get those funds, they must do certain things. And those things are the kinds of things that have been done and have failed and have been devastating in Chicago. They must close failing schools or turn them around, expand charter schools, pass legislation that allows charter schools to be expanded. They must have some kind of evaluation system of teachers that’s tied to testing students. And these policies now are the national agenda.

The fucker needs to go, but he is owned by Gates, Broad, and all of the rest.

So is Obama.

So are most of the "Democrats" who are representing the voters.